Xi, Modi agree to reduce border tensions

BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended informal meetings Saturday with a promise to reduce border tensions after a high-altitude standoff in the Himalayas last year.

The leaders have spent two days in the central Chinese city of Wuhan for discussions on how to mend ties strained when troops from both sides came eyeball-to-eyeball in the disputed Doklam area.

The leaders “underscored the importance of maintaining peace and tranquility in all areas of the India-China border region”, Indian’s foreign ministry said in a statement following the meeting.

“They issued strategic guidance to their respective militaries to strengthen communication in order to build trust and mutual understanding and enhance predictability and effectiveness in the management of border affairs,” it said, adding the two sides will “earnestly implement various confidence building measures”.

In a statement on its website, China’s foreign ministry said that Xi had told Modi that “a friendly Sino-Indian relationship is a significant, positive factor in safeguarding world stability,” adding that “China and India should be good neighbours and good friends”.

Instead, Xi emphasised the countries had both traditionally had “an independent foreign policy”, an oblique reference to India’s discussion with the US, Australia and Japan about balancing against China’s growing assertiveness in what the Trump administration has begun to refer to as the “Indo-Pacific” region.

The four countries have been in discussions over trade and security.

“In dealing with great power relations, China persists in strategic autonomy,” the foreign ministry quoted Xi as saying.

Beijing “persists in promoting the construction of a new type of international relations based on mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation”.

New Delhi has also raised concerns about Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, a global trade infrastructure programme that includes a major project through Pakistan-administered Kashmir, disputed territory that New Delhi claims is illegally occupied.

The issue was not, however, mentioned in either the Indian or Chinese statements.

Instead, the Indian side emphasised that the two leaders had agreed to cooperate on a wide range of issues from economic development to counter-terrorism.

INP adds: China will not stress on India joining China’s key Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said after an informal summit between President Xi and Narendra Modi.

China does not think it is important whether India accepts China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project and China won’t force it to, Kong told reporters in Wuhan. He also said China does not think the Indian government has changed its official position that Tibet is a part of China.

India’s Ambassador to China Gautam Bambawale, in a March interview with the Hong Kong-based daily South China Morning Post, had said that if the CPEC meets the norms of an international programme, then New Delhi has no problem.

“One of the norms is that the project should not violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a country. Unfortunately, there is this thing called the CPEC which violates India’s sovereignty and territory integrity. Therefore, we oppose it,” the Indian envoy had told the Hong Kong daily.